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CflEHSIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE VICTORY 

POEMS OF TRIUMPH 



THE 

VICTORY 

POEMS OF TRIUMPH 

BY 
CHARLES KEELER 



I 



NEW YORK 

LAURENCE J. GOMME 

1916 



■'i!'^6 



^^^*V 



Copyright, 1916, by 
LAURENCE J. GOMME 




VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
SIN4HAMTQN AND NEW YORK 

QQT -9 1916 



'CI,A438804 



To 
JOHN BURROUGHS 

We have climbed together the granite peaks tossed up in the 

West, 
We have talked together of life and death and the spirit 

quest. 
Friend of the hills and the birds and flowers with heart 

undefiled, 
Your beard is frosted by time, but you look with the eyes 

of a child; 
Your own has come to you as you stand on the peak of 

age, 
And I call up from the valley and ask for thy blessing, 

O Sage ! 



NOTE 

Included in this collection are two poems which 
were published in earlier volumes, burned with all my 
other published books in the San Francisco earthquake 
and fire. The lines here entitled "Growth" were first 
printed under another caption in "A Light Through 
the Storm," and 'The Dreamer and the Doer" is from 
"Idyls of El Dorado." 

The lines "To My Boy" were published in The 
University of California Magazine; "Faith and 
Works" appeared in The Cosmopolitan Magazine; "A 
Masque of the City" was first printed in Success Maga- 
zine; "Playing the Part" in The Pacific Monthly. 
"Compensation" was included in a volume of verse 
published by The California Writers Club. "On 
the Dedication of a Drinking Fountain" was read 
in Alameda, California, before the fountain and 
printed in the local papers. "A New Year Ode" was 
read at a public gathering and printed in the Berkeley 
Reporter. "Love is All"' appeared in Bruno's Weekly 
under the title "A Song of Life." Most of the above 
have been many times reprinted in various papers, but 
are now for the first time gathered in a volume. 

Of the remaining poems, a large number have been 
recited on my programs in California, Honolulu, Japan, 
China, the Philippines, India, Florence, London and 
New York, but have not hitherto been published. 

C. K. 



LIST OF TITLES 

PAGE 

The Victory i 

O Whence, O Whither, Soul? .... 2 

The Real 4 

The Cry of Life 6 

Man the Conqueror 8 

The Dreamer and the Doer 10 

Faith and Works 12 

To My Boy 13 

A Turbulent Spirit 15 

Compensation 18 

Our Heritage of Joy 19 

Growth 20 

The Chant of Life To-day 2i 

Triumphant Beauty 26 

Woman 27 

A Masque of the City .29 

Not in Vain 31 

Forbidden Fruit 32 

The Chant of the Soul Triumphant . . 33 

The Truth 35 

The Shrine of God 38 

O Elusive One 39 

Conventions . . . .40 



List of Titles 

PAGE 

Playing the Part . 42 

Longing 43 

The Time Spirit 44 

Quoth Socrates 46 

A Picture of Mammon 47 

The Toil of Wizard Wheels 49 

After Loss 52 

Memories 53 

The Soul of Things 54 

To THE Builders of the New City ... 56 

'Tis Well . 58 

Our Brothers of the Fields and Trees . . 59 

The Master 62 

On Hearing Music 65 

The Painter 67 

To Ina Coolbrith 70 

Fate 73 

The Joy Bringer 74 

Love's Dower 77 

At the Ferry 78 

The People of the Graves 80 

Yearning After the Infinite 84 

Waiting 85 

On the Dedication of a Drinking Fountain 87 

The Secret of Life 91 

With the Dead . 92 

The Awakening -94 

The Venus of Melos .96 

The Quest of Happiness . . . . . . 100 



List of Titles 

PAGE 

Love is All 104 

Through Sorrow's Mist 106 

The Child Heart 108 

Dreaming in the Crowd 109 

Prayer 113 

Friends 116 

Now 117 

Remembered Love 119 

A New Year Ode 120 

The Reincarnation of the Giants . . .122 

The Voyage 123 

A Chant of Love 125 

New World Magic 128 



THE VICTORY 



THE VICTORY 

IN the night of defeat I await the dawn of victory, 
From the clash of discord I flee to harmonious song, 
From the anguish of evil I yearn to the triumph of 
good; 

The conquest of age by the dauntless heart of youth. 
The conquest of death by the power creative of soul, 
The conquest of hate by the limitless might of love. 



O WHENCE, O WHITHER, SOUL? 

O WHENCE, 
O whither. 
Soul? 

What genesis, 
What destiny 
Is thine? 

Back of thy birth, 
Beyond thy death, 
What fate? 
Ephemeron 

With tremulous flight 
From chrysalis 
One fluttering hour 
Unto oblivion ! 

Millenniums of life 
Through thee reverberate; 
Uncounted cycles swing 
Through thy pre-natal pulse; 
Unreckoned aeons cast 
Thy seed from life to life. 
Fate plays at cards with thee, 
Shuffles and cuts the pack 
Through ages ere thy birth, 
2 



O Whence, O Whither, Soulf 



And throws thee on the board 
The last hand of the game. 

Thy garments wrought 
Of dust of stars, 
Primordial nebulae 
On time's loom spun 
To plasmic form, 
Become thee well! 
O lovely bride, 
Thy mighty spouse, 
The world-czar Death 
Awaiteth thee. 
Hail to thy nuptials! 
But whither the journey 
Out unto the heavens. 
Star-wandering pilgrim ? 

The footfalls of angels 

Up cloudy steeps guide thee; 

The path of the comet, 

Celestial highway 

To ultimate star-worlds. 

Thy bright feet shall traverse. 

No bonds shall enthrall thee, 

No limits shall bind thee, 

For lo 'tis ordained 

Thou shalt journey to God! 



THE REAL 

\X 7E vex our lives with aimless strife, 
^ ^ We clutter up our days with things ; 
We strain for goods, we grasp for gain, 
And lo we find 'tis all but dust, 
'Tis but illusion mocking us. 
What are these phantasms of today 
For which we toil and moil in pain, 
These prized belongings of an hour 
Wherefore we fritter life away? 
Ashes and rust, the winds of care 
Whirl dancing down the void of time, 
Or smoke to just obscure the blue, 
Or sick miasmas of the morn. 

Give me the real, give me the true; 
'Tis not compounded out of clay, 
The spirit essence, love distilled, 
God's presence growing into light 
Through soul of flower up to man, 
Friendship and love, benignant peace. 
And beauty hallowing all our hours. 
Yea that alone we bring to life 
When from the mother's womb we spring. 
And that which in our hearts we hold 



The Real 

As silently we drift away 
From this great pageant of the world, 
And lift our gaze to wider spheres — 
That only can beguile our tears. 



THE CRY OF LIFE 

T AM no flagellant 

-*• With whip and scourge, 

I am no penitent 

In hairy coat; 

No faster, no ascetic I, 

No mortifier of the flesh, 

No monk in lonely cell 

Emmewed aloof from life. 

Thank God, who did endow 

Me, soul, with flesh and frame 

To glorify, to use 

In joy and thankfulness! 

'Tis good to live, to breathe 
Deep draughts of fragrant morn, 
Deep dewy draughts of night ; 
To eat sweet simples of the earth. 
To drink of springs, cool, crystal-clear; 
To feel the warm benignant sun 
Tingling the skin, the zest of winds, 
The nip of frost upon the cheek; 
To feel the tender touch of hands — 
Communicable thrills awaked 
By their caress, the throb of life 
6 



The Cry of Life 

That leaps with meeting lips, 
The ecstasy of love — 
O life, O bliss! 

So is my cry not death 

But life! more life, replete 

With all that sense can wring 

Of beauty out of clay; 

Full of the joy of light. 

Of color and of sound. 

Of redolence of flowers. 

Full of sweet words and laughter, 

Until intoxicate 

With beauty we may see 

The hem of the onspeeding Deity 

And cry out, God, praise be to Thee! 



MAN THE CONQUEROR 

ONE by one hast thou conquered the elements, 
masterful man, 
Taming the steam and electrical spark to thy will, 
To speed thee o'er land and o'er sea at thy beck and 

thy nod ; 
Boring like mole through the mountains and under 

the rivers, 
Diving like penguin beneath the wild waters and rising 
To ride on the waves unconcerned by thy triumphs 

surpassing. 
Now thou hast mastered the air, and thy ships go 

careering 
Skyward to vie with the eagle, by danger undaunted. 

What is there left for thy conquest, unsatisfied mon- 
arch? 

What but thyself. Cosmic Caesar, who owns none for 
master ! 

Of old it was said, " Know thyself," but I say to thee 
further, 

" Go, conquer thyself " — that will make thee com- 
mander-in-chief. 

With armies of passions rebellious subdued and sub- 
missive, 

8 



Man the Conqueror 



A monarch 'twill make thee, with hopes and with fears 

for thy subjects; 
Nay, 'twill make thee a god, and the world will be 

thine where thou walkest. 



THE DREAMER AND THE DOER 

" In the beginning ivas the Word, and the Word luas with 
God, and the Word ivas God." — St. John. 

"D ACK of every mighty action stands the planner 

■*-' with his plan ; 

First the dreamer, then the doer; first the Maker, then 

the man. 
Shall we lower rate achievements of the brain than of 

the hand? 
All we do is of the spirit if we rightly understand. 



When the voice of Science tells us how through ages 

man has grown, 
How the world is still in making, how the past is all 

our own, 
Shall we therefore count it lightly that the world was 

first a word 
Spoken in a void of silence, by the startled atoms 

heard ? 

For the world is still unfolding what the primal Mas- 
ter planned, 

Through eternity completing one sublimely thought 
command ; 

lo 



The Dreamer and the Doer 



And the dreamer is the doer if he dreameth aught 

aright, 
For his thought shall grow to action, and his word 

shall be the light. 



II 



FAITH AND WORKS 

WE prate of love and deal in hate ; 
We talk of faith and trust to fate. 
O might we do the things we preach, 
Could we but live the life we teach ! 

When Christ was born, did men rejoice? 
Adown the ages swells his voice, 
But sounds in vain for him who reads 
If faith leads not to loving deeds. 

When Plato lit the torch of yore 
The beacon blazed from shore to shore, 
And we upon time's farthest height 
Still see it flash across the night. 

Uplift the brand, nor fear the burn ; 
Dare, in a world of doubt, to learn 
That God attains Himself through you 
Christ lives today in them that do. 



12 



TO MY BOY 
On His First Birthday 

LITTLE stranger from a world unknown, 
Little pilgrim starting on your quest, 
Little spirit with your flight unflown. 
Nestling sheltered at the mother's breast, 

By what mystic alchemy divine 

Do I live, transfigured in your form, 

Thus commingled with a spirit fine. 
Thus repatterned to a fairer norm? 

But your eyes repeat your mother's fair, 
As the pool that mirrors heaven's blue, 

And the halo of your golden hair 

Hints the glory she bequeathes to you. 

By such tokens do we claim you ours. 

Yet no mortal genesis alone 
Bound you to the tyranny of hours. 

Cast your spirit in the flesh and bone. 

Faring hither from the past obscure 
With the taper life to light you far, 

Tho' it flicker out, shall love endure. 

Guide to lead you toward your goal — a star! 
13 



To My Boy 

You are ours in trust a little time, 

Ours to start upon the upward trail. 
May the little feet grow strong to climb, 

May the heart expand, the will avail. 

Tiny hands shall strengthen to their need, 
Tiny lips shall learn to speak in praise; 

Child, I charge you, one monition heed, 

One commandment keep through all your days: 

Learn to serve, with hand and heart and brain, 
God within you find, not far above; 

Toil for beauty, give, and thereby gain. 
Thus transmute your labor into love. 



14 



A TURBULENT SPIRIT 

A TURBULENT spirit mine, 
Untamed like frightened bird 
Fluttering against the wires, 
Beating upon its cage; 
Spirit of wild unrest, 
Of the lion gnashing the bars. 
Snarling in futile rage, 
Roaring his vain desire 
To roam unfettered far 
O'er dun dim Nubian plains; 
Spirit of brawny blacksmith 
With fist of iron beating 
The keys of ebon and ivory 
And howling in impotent wrath 
At the jangle and crash of sound 
When he would that music respond ; 
Spirit of writhing madness, 
Of the maniac beating his head 
On the walls of his padded cell 
And crying unto death 
To free his imprisoned soul. 

Ah yes, these spirits all my spirit seemed 
Until one day a little wild bird sang, 
15 



A Turbulent Spirit 



Or was it an opening flower that smiled to me, 

Or was it beam of sun that sought me out? 

For something whispered timidly and low: 

" Peace, peace," and only " peace." But I replied ; 

" Nay, nay, I am a fighter, let me fight, 

Whack with my blade at phantoms mocking me. 

Thrust at the effigies of mortal men, 

Smite the tormentor Life who prisons me 

In walls of flesh and wrest from him the prize, 

The blessed boon of Death he holds from me." 

But still the voice reiterated, " Peace." 

Perchance it was a child's voice mocking me. 

Or wafted whisper from another world; 

So very close to me the murmur sounds 

It almost seems my own soul crying " Peace." 

Perchance 'tis God or one of his dear angels 

Singing beatitudes from spheres afar. 

At last my spirit answers: " I am free! 
Yes, yes, a wild cloud-winging bird am I 
Singing my arias in life's radiant morn; 
A lion-spirit, bold, untamed and strong, 
Bounding o'er native wildernesses wild; 
A master craftsman of the spell-bound keys 
Whose every touch evokes divine response, 
A philosophic sage with cosmic mind 
Compounding out of chaos, order, law. 



i6 



A Turbulent Spirit 



" Now verily I find my strife in vain, 
Since Life, transfigured to a gladsome child 
Has beckoned me, and, pointing to his feet, 
Shown me his shadow Death across his path." 
So may I grow in peace and grace of love, 
Knowing that shadows must betoken light. 
Calmly I wander on th' eternal way — 
Dear God, I take Thy hand and walk in peace. 



17 



COMPENSATION 

T70R every pang a thrill of joy, 
-*- For every sin a deed of grace, 
For every curse a benison — 
Somewhere, somehow, sometime! 

This is my faith, that God is just. 
That wrong shall be resolved in right, 
That out of darkness breaks the light. 

We would not have eternal day, 
We would not have all happiness; 
The shadows make the glow more bright. 
The night-gloom glorifies the day 
And sorrow sanctifies our bliss. 

So if this life seem mostly lost 
In one dull reach of dreary gloom. 
And if the good be bowed in dust, 
What matters it, if God be just? 

The great world plan cannot be wrong, 
In other lives, on other spheres 
The good God justifies earth-tears, 
And souls that suffer shall be blessed. 



OUR HERITAGE OF JOY 

SUNSHINE and laughter and song, 
These are ours by inalienable right; 
So come, wise owl, stop hooting at night, 
The world is not all wrong. 

Cheer up, old comrade, be friends with the weather! 

The donkey brays 

For tempting sprays 
Just beyond his tether. 
Knowing not that the grass at his feet 
Is full as sweet 
And far more tender than the thistles out of reach. 

Ah, could we but learn what we so glibly teach. 
That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, 
We would not forever scramble and push 
With our pinch of salt after birds awing; 
Why not let them sing, man, let them sing. 
And you sing too, and perchance you may find 

That, just as they did to Orpheus, the birds will 
come to you — 

The little birds of hope from heaven blue — 
If you are only kind — 
Remember that, now — mind ! 

19 



GROWTH 

^^TOTHING is meaningless, nothing is vain 

-^ ^ In this big world of promise, this cycle of pain ; 

Every pang that we suffer, as daily we plod. 

Is lifting our spirits through anguish to God. 

We climb on adversity ceaselessly higher. 
We mount on each lowly unworthy desire; 
The beast that possessed us thro' ages of night 
We master and rule as we grow toward the light. 

Thro' our lowly upyearnings we grasp the full plan 
As the ape chatters idly, yet teaches the man, 
And the man gravely ponders that angels may learn; 
For we climb on the states that we conquer and spurn. 



20 



THE CHANT OF LIFE TODAY 

ARE we all Circe-mad with life's new wine? 
Crazed with the thirst of power until we seek 
Some opiate to dispel the brute obsession? 
Is life a phrenzy of illusionment, 
A nightmare harrying our souls away 
From ivy-crowned Joy's impassioned court? 

The royal guest frequents our banquet board — 
A grinning skeleton in sheeted shroud 
Who shrives us gaily ere he tolls the bell. 

So let us snatch from Death these frantic hours 

Of revelry, our senses to beguile 

With viands sauced to tempt our glutton greed, 

The while an outburst of erotic song 

In syncopated rhythm rends the air. 

And should some skinny-fingered palsied hag 
Come skulking in to whine her loathsome plea: 
" Good sirs, I'm starving, give me but a crust," 
Why, let the waiter hustle her away. 
Why should we tip the fellow unless he ban 
Such spectres from these sacred halls of mirth? 
21 



The Chant of Life Today 



And so if I must cater to an age 

Jaded with rag-time and mad cacophony, 

Must it be vaudeville you wiring from me? 

Ha, would you have me blare on the trombone, 

Smash down the cymbals and lambaste the drum 

To punctuate some brash coon-yeller's bawl? 

Should I ride Pegasus across your stage 

Transmogrified into a hobby-horse 

With antic monkey tugging at the strings? 

No, look, the hand is writing on the wall, 
Awake ye soused and listless banqueters, 
Ye dare not glance with mocking eyes askance, 
For now, behold the hour of reckoning! 

And so I sing in your unwilling ears 

A raucous chant of life and death and truth, 

A hymn of beggars and bedlam hags and thieves, 

A song of felons in and out of cells, 

A plea of paupers and little soul-starved children. 

I sing of life, not glozed with silk and gems. 

But grimed in sweat-shop, groggery and dive. 

Mocked in palatial halls of empty pomp, 

Flung from divorce courts and from bated breath 

Of scandal-mongers eager with their tale 

To damn the good name of their nearest friend. 



22 



The Cha7it of Life Today 



Think you to find some balm in Gilead, 

Some ready-made placebo for the soul, 

Some life-elixir or magician's spell 

To rob the hive of life without a sting? 

Go, ask Canute how long he stayed the tide, 

Stick on the severed head and galvanize 

The stiff cold corpse and bid it preach your creed ! 

Ah, dreamers, lulled with opiate sophistries, 
Knowest not the taint of earth's mortality 
Is in our flesh despite our yea and nay? 
The overlord sits grinning at the feast 
And late or soon cries " Come! " and we obey. 

So let us dare to face the sober truth, 
Look straight into its eye, nor flinch nor wince. 
How many hungry mouths in the proud city 
Would thank God for the scrapings from your plate ? 

What of the desolating holocaust 
That sweeps the world in war's proud panoply? 
That immolates upon the altar Hate 
Unnumbered millions tossed in Moloch's maw? 

Your platitudes are staggered by the sight 
Of starving nations and dismembered hordes, 
A million mothers crying in the rain, 
A fleet of full-crewed ships of war that lie 
Amid the sea things in the ghastly deeps. 
23 



The Chant of Life Today 



Ah, dilettanti and blaze esthetes, 

I hear you sniff " iconoclast " at me, 

You yawn and edge away, your jaded nerves 

To rouse with new sensations, nothing loath. 

But wait, for like the Ancient Mariner 

I hold you, wedding guest, to hear my plea. 

Do we not tear ramshackle rookeries down 

Ere we erect great steel-wrought skeletons 

And pile our walls above the Pyramids? 

So would I tear dov.^n cant and sham today, 

Materialism's sneer at holy things — 

Burn every filthy stick of rotten wood 

And ram down piles to base our structure well. 

Come, comrades, reverently I question you: 
Think you God saw that tiny starveling child 
Look up with piteous appeal to mother eyes 
That rained tears on its little shrunken form 
And let it die with anguish unallayed? 

Think you God saw the wanton murderer 
Blot out the life of yon frail hapless maid, 
Nor stayed the hand uplifted for the blow? 
Think you God countenances sin and shame 
For no intent in His great cosmic plan? 
What monster of a God would we adore! 
Nay, we but fashion karmas for our souls 
To expiate in progress through the stars, 

24 



The Chant of Life Today 



Schooled in adversity and wrong and woe 
We learn, upclambering on the stony way, 
Bearing our crosses unto Calvary. 

And these our transient bodies, weak and frail. 
Are fiddles whereupon we play life's tune, 
And who the fiddler? Soul, now have your say, 
Rag or sonata do you mean to play ? — 
For, as you play in th' flesh, so shall it be 
When you sing in th' glorious choir of heavenly 
spheres. 

Ah, let it be a joyous part you play, 
Of loving kindness ringing round the sphere! 
Tune up your strings (you're in the symphony 
Of brotherhood) and play with all your will. 
God is conductor, and the clash and strife 
But sanctifies the heart for holy strains; 
Play the allegro now — good will to men. 
Mindless of self, with world-wide sympathy, 
A great andante chorale swells to heaven. 
Ah, players, keep in tune and do not lag. 
Watch the Conductor's baton beat the time — 
God! this is heaven on earth, life's symphony! 



25 



TRIUMPHANT BEAUTY 

TOWARD beauty yearns my heart unceasingly ; 
Its ghost I clasp, and in my eager hand 
I find but emptiness tormenting me; 
The hour-glass am I that sifts the sand. 

O rainbow wraith, could I but hold your ray! 

butterfly that flutters o'er the rose. 
Why must you wing so joyously away, 

The sport of every vagrant breeze that blows ? 

O love that seemed to cling in constancy, 
Along came Death to woo thee, and behold, 

Thee even did he take away from me! 
Amid the damp of night I wander cold. 

But in the darkness and the chilling gloom 

1 caught the glimmer of a quivering star. 
And from the dreary silence of the tomb 

Awoke a voice across the void afar: 

" Not in the frozen witchery of death 
Is beauty prisoned, but in life it wings 

Triumphant toward the blue with panting breath 
And in immortal freedom joyous sings." 
26 



WOMAN 

^ I ''HE hairy cave-man clutched his mate 
-■■ And snarled out : " Woman, slave, 
On thee I slake my thirst. 
Beget me children, 
Do my work, 
Beware my wrath ! " 
And she, the weak one, silently obeyed. 

The knight unto the tourney rode 

And proudly cried: 

" For thee, O fair one, would I break my lance. 

Or take the cold steel of my haughty rival. 

Thou plaything of my idle hours. 

Safe mewed within the castle moat, 

Be thou but as thy scarf 

That flutters from my helmet in the field, 

A whimsey bright and fair. 

Or jewel on my shield ; " 

And she, the sleeping princess, dreamed 

And said: " 'Tis well, my lord, 'tis well." 

For many a year the princess drowsed in peace 
Until the Knight of Freedom rode anigh 
And at the castle postern knocked 
27 



Woman 

And cried : " Awake ! Awake ! " 

The cock crowed for the dawning, 

The dogs barked lustily, 

The old clock in the hall 

Resumed its ticking after silent centuries. 

The dreaming princess, from her trance aroused. 

Beheld herself unconquered, unafraid. 

And spake out: " He who taketh me 

Must win me every day and every hour. 

Win me with love and hold me with its power. 

No more a noble's thrall am I, 

No more a master's underling. 

Henceforth, by God's decree 

I stand his equal, free, 

A living dauntless soul 

Daring to face the whole 

Of destiny's great plan, 

Friend and helpmate of man." 

And so she grew in womanhood and grace. 

More worthy mother of a lordlier race. 



28 



A MASQUE OF THE CITY 

A WHIRLWIND of faces adown the dark street, 
"^ ^ A clatter of hoof-beats, a scuffle of feet, 
A clanging of bells and a rumble of wheels 
As round me the tempest Humanity reels, 
As past me the Juggernaut Destiny reels. 

What on the faces that pass do I read? 
Blood is the script and the motto is Greed! 
Pale are the spectres that sweep down the pave, 
Pale as the foam on the crest of the wave, 
Pallid as foam when the angry seas rave. 

Women and children and men in the throng, 
Troubled with life in a tumult of wrong, 
Weary of earning the boon of a grave, 
Paying for power the price of a slave, 
Selling their souls for the gold they may save! 

Civilization and progress I hear 

Dinned by a discord of pain on my ear; 

A scramble for gold and a scuffle for gain 

And who shall not say at the last, " It is vain?" 

And who shall not cry at the close, " All in vain ! " 



29 



A Masque of the City 



Lift up the masks from the throng in the street; 
Fling off the weeds of despair and deceit, 
Under the turmoil of passionate strife 
Pushes the spirit of beauteous life — 
God is beneath all the pain that is rife. 



30 



NOT IN VAIN 

T BLEW a bubble of radiant hue 

-*• That imaged the earth and the tremulous blue, 

But the frail bubble burst as its wonderment grew. 

I builded a hope like a cloud of gold 

That arched o'er the land in its radiant fold, 

But the dream broke in tears on the earth's drear mold. 

I folded a love to my aching heart. 

But it pierced and it pained like the sting of a dart. 

For the love was a thorn and I shrank from its smart. 

But the thorn bore a blossom that bloomed at my breast. 
And the hope was upbuilded of brooding unrest, 
And the thing I had fancied most cruel, was best. 



31 



FORBIDDEN FRUIT 

T~^EEP have I bitten the bitter-sweet fruit of the 

-*-^ Garden of Life and of longing, 

Plucked from its bower of brambles, and pricked by 

its thorns till I cried out with pain. 
And its juice, red as heart-blood, has stained me, but O 

like the fruit serpent-guarded in Eden, 
Or the gold apples watched by the daughters of Hes- 

per, the prize beyond price must be bought 
By sorrow and danger, for lo I have learned of the 

meaning of good and of evil, 
Have eaten the fruit at my peril and now as the gods 

must be strong to endure. 



32 



THE CHANT OF THE SOUL 
TRIUMPHANT 

COME hither, all ye sad and sorrowing ones, 
Come, heavy-hearted, lonely spirits, come, 
For I, too, through the Valley of the Shadow 
Have walked with bowed head thoughtfully and slow. 

And I would sing to thee, O weary heart, 

No solemn-chanted Miserere, 

No dirge of doom or march funerbe. 

But words of gladness in triumphant strains. 

When friends have deserted thee as haggard Want 

stalked to thy door. 
When hydra-headed Trouble hissed in thy pathway 

with threatening fangs, 
Thou hast cried: Woe is me, ah misery! 

When thou hast seemed like Job accursed of Heaven, 
Or like Prometheus felt the bird of Zeus rending thy 

flesh, 
Thou hast cried unto God : O let me die ! 

And in Plis wisdom he hath called instead 
The dear beloved one who was thy staff of life, 
And left thee weltering in the deeps alone, 

33 



The Chant of the Soul Triumphant 



Ye cannot comprehend the cosmic plan, 

Yet know that somehow shall the wrong be right, 

And dare to walk erect and face the world. 

Sing like the meadow-lark in rain as well as in the sun, 
Like the snake in the spring-time slough off the scales 

of care, 
Cast the devils of fear out of thee and be a conqueror ! 

O could I chant to thee as David unto Saul, 

I'd sing thee of all the gladness of the year — 

Of the joy of the winds, of the sweep and the freedom 
of tempests. 

Of the laughter of waters, the shout of the masterful 
ocean, 

Of the fire ecstatic that warms thee, the radiant sun- 
beams, 

Yea, and the love elemental that surges in time to thy 
heart-beats, 

That thrills thee with beauty and sets thy soul free 
in the heavens. 

O I rejoice that God is throned amid the high places, 

And as I climb the mountains toward His seat. 

Upward, forever upward, let me sing 

The song of Life the Conqueror, 

And his victory over pain and death ; 

Sing the chant of the soul triumphant 

And the glory and joy of the conquest. 

34 



THE TRUTH 

I CRAVE the truth, stark naked, unashamed; 
And should it smite me, let me face the pang, 
Aye, turn the other cheek, and cry, again ! 
If I have coddled error to my breast. 
Let me cast forth the viper ere it sting. 
God, grant to me the hospitable mind 
Ready to welcome from the vast unknown 
The little children of the Master Truth. 

And so when Science in his crucible 
Melts down the images of saints and gods. 
Shall we not save the residue of gold 
And toss aside the worthless lump of slag? 
Why should we stumble on our march to death 
With clumsy fardels of antique device. 
Like Sinbad packing round an incubus? 

Do I disturb you, comfortable friend? 
Who'd have the surgeon diagnose a cancer? 
No, let us live in fatuous content! 
The old-wives' tales we learned on nurse's knee 
Will serve for passport through Saint Peter's gate. 
And so we preen ourselves before the world. 

35 



The Truth 

But Galileo, the iconoclast, 

Not thus obeisance made to prejudice. 

When he spied out God's order in the skies. 

And how the riven sun in pangs of birth 

Cast from its side the world. 

Not e'en the Inquisition's grim intent 

Could shake his proclamation of the truth. 

Bible and Pope might thunder out the law, 

But his calm voice above the turmoil rose. 

So Darwin to the scoffers made reply 
With piled facts no sophistry could shake. 
His the new Genesis from nature's bible, 
Of creatures struggling through millenniums. 
Through patient cycles of ascending forms; 
He told of primal protoplasmic cells 
Controlled by laws immutable, that grew 
Even as the flower unfurling from the seed 
And culminating in the master man. 

It hurts your pride perchance, to trace your line 

Back to some prehistoric chattering ape. 

Of what avail, if so it runs? 

You would not, like the ostrich, hide your head 

In desert sand to 'scape the huntsman Truth. 

Beware black magic curse of bigotry! 

But Science is not God's elect disciple. 
And many an error has she treasured fast 

36 



The Truth 

Beneath her academic cloak of smug conceit. 
Ah savants, be not overproud, I pray, 
You too must bow before the Mighty One. 
There may be finer laws than you dissolve 
With microscope and telescope and spectrum, 
More subtle forces than your prying eyes 
Can penetrate amid the unknown dark. 

What are your laws but visions of the unseen Will? 
What are your forces but the thinking of the perfect 

Mind? 
So open wide your hearts to His great light, 
O seekers after truth, and as the child 
Who strays afield and finds a paradise of flowers, 
Walk into God's great garden sown with stars 
And lift your eyes aloft and cry — " 'Tis good ! " 



31 



THE SHRINE OF GOD 

BREAK with old saws, old rituals, creeds and cant; 
Why must we worship Mumbo-Jumbo still? 
Why practice voodoistic gibberish 
With all the sanctimonious airs of piety? 
The shaman shouts, and at his nod we turn; 
Through all the mummery of haranguing priest 
The medicine-man with drum and shaking rattle 
Still capers, decked in feathers and wild paint 
To scare the devils that harass our dreams. 

O once for all have done with him, be free ; 
No intermediary stands 'twixt thee and God 
Whose robes are wind-swept trees and drifting clouds, 
WTiose voice is in the bird-song and the sea, 
Whose temple is the heart of yearning man 
Where He sits throned in grace and majesty. 
O laboring soul, in reverence seek His shrine, 
The open sesame whereto is love. 



38 



O ELUSIVE ONE 

T LOOK in your eyes, 
-*■ I take your hand, 
Words come and go, 
Betwixt us twin, 
But j'ou, O soul, 
I do not know, — 
Only the symbol, 
Only the sign. 

I hear your laughter, 

I see you weeping, 

I feel the warmth 

Of your breath on my cheek; 

Only the spirit 

I may not fathom, 

I look and follow 

But never find. 

Ever I seek 
The wraith elusive; 
I kiss you and press you 
Close to my heart; 
Dearer than life, 
O' lovely sphinx. 
Will-o'-the-wisp, 
My wander child! 
39 



CONVENTIONS 

STAY, little slant-eyed mother in Cathay, 
Cut off the swathes and free your baby's feet; 
You Flat-head squaw, take off the bandages 
From your papoose and press the skull in shape; 
And O proud heir of all the ages wrong, 
Dare you distort the plastic lovely form 
God trusts to you to rear to woman's grace? 

Ah 'tis the mindless master of the masque. 

Stale custom, lording over us its law, 

Who pours our souls like molten brass in moulds 

And turns us out distorted images; 

It is the Gorgon's head that petrifies; 

Like Lot's forsaken wife we turn to salt. 

Must we take consul of the low-browed ape 
And heedless mimic what the courts of style 
Decree, contemptuous of beauty's right? 
Dame Fashion folds her paper, takes her shears 
And cuts out strings of dolls in mocking scorn. 
We are the dolls she gives her laughing child, 
The World, to play with while it pleases her, 
Then crumples us and throws us in the fire. 
40 



Conventions 



Come, let us flout the autocrat inane, 
Parley no more with freakish vanities, 
No longer wear the badge of servitude 
But find our sanction in the inner light. 
For beauty out of nature's heart is bom 
And grov^rs in freedom unto fruitfulness. 



41 



PLAYING THE PART 

COME, make a bluff of courage, timid one! 
Assume the port of valor, play the part, 
Till acting it with usage oft renewed 
So breeds it in thy being and thy brain 
Thou growest to the stature of a man. 
Not the swashbuckler or Quixotic knight 
Swaggering before stuffed effigies of straw, 
Tilting with windmills — fake knight errantry ! 
But real deep-hearted acting till in sooth 
The marionettes with life are animate. 
The actors attitudinize no more 
But, willy-nilly, now assume the role. 
Live the heroic part and laugh at fear. 
Throw dice with fate, and, be it gain or loss 
Cry, such is life, come, try another toss! 



42 



LONGING 

T?OR the unutterable, 
-■" For the ineffable 
Am I longing 
In dead of night: 
For the rose unfading, 
The song unending. 
The heart unchanging, 
For love, for light ! 

I would gather the stars. 
The flowers of heaven ; 
For my garden bright 
Is the beautiful whole ; 
I would stray with thee 
O'er night's wide meadow, 
O spirit maiden, 
O radiant soul! 



43 



THE TIME SPIRIT 

/^UT of impenetrable Chaos, black and wild, 
^'^ Behold, beloved, upward-surging Mind, 
The Master Spirit mated unto Love — 
These twain creators of the firmament, 
Of earth and heaven and all the host of stars. 
Of life and death and all strange pageantries 
Of shades and shadows in the wilderness, 
Forever sweeping in my tireless keep ; 
For lo, the progeny of Mind and Love 
Am I, familiar spirit of my heavenly sire. 

The weaver I of world-dreams and of weird 
Phantasm agorial shades that rise and ride 
From star-dust to the hymning host of heaven. 
I rove like honey-bee 'mid blossoming bells 
From zoned Saturn unto channelled Mars, 
And up the void to worlds unvisited. 
Where bright Arcturus flames remote and vast. 

My hands unite the future with the past, 
The unformed figments of tomorrow's pomp 
With legions of inchoate wraiths of thought, 
Unissued from the womb of mystery. 
44 



The Time Spirit 



I am the hoar ghost at the van of time, 
Leading the ages onward into light. 
The swing of planets round the mother sun 
Mark golden scrolls upon the boundless blue 
For signs and symbols of my tireless flight. 

I am the world-pulse and my laboring heart 
Throbs with the myriad heart-beats of the spheres. 
My way is semperternal and I lead 
My votaries unto darkling glades of death. 
I sift the sands of mortal thought and deed 
And in my palm preserve the grains of gold; 
My flail forever winnows out the chaff 
And sets it whirling down the gusty years, 
While in my granary the grain is housed. 

Lo, I am Fate, beloved, and I brood 
O'er worlds and men and cosmic cavalcades. 
Filing down the ages to their doom. 
Wending amid the stars to victory. 



45 



QUOTH SOCRATES 

OUOTH Socrates, the seer, 
To idlers in the agora : 
" I am a pestilent gad-fly 
To sting you until you think." 

So in our streets of trade 
Would I go buzzing round 
'Mongst men whose god is gold 
And make them cry in pain. 



46 



A PICTURE OF MAMMON 

OFOR Angelo the mighty, 
Sculptor of grim allegories, 
Painter of heroic prophets. 
Limner of colossal sibyls! 

I would have him paint a picture, 
Make a mural decoration 
For the temple men are building. 
Tier on tier, amidst the city. 

In the center of the pageant 
Mammon sits enthroned, triumphant - 
Him to whom men own allegiance, 
Master of the marts of progress, 
Blindly worshipped god or devil. 
Gilded monster of the revel. 

At his feet a squid is sprawling, 
Giant cuttlefish uncanny. 
With its tentacles wide reaching — 
Flabby arms with suckers studded — 
Stretching far and near about it, 
Twined around the fleeing people 
47 



A Picture of Mammon 



Who in vain, with hands uplifted, 
Wildly clutch the great octopus 
Like Laocoon and his children 
In the python's folds encircled. 

Round the dais of King Mammon 
Stand the few elect, elated, 
Rapt in gaze upon their master. 
Paying orisons unnumbered 
To the demon high exalted. 

Far below, a host of toilers 

Armed with sledge and pick and mallet 

Seek to storm the shrine of Mammon, 

By the devil-fish protected. 

They would worship with the mighty, 

They would trample on their brothers, 

Crowd them down and climb upon them 

Upward toward the throne of Mammon, 

But the great octopus stays them 

Where they crowd in ranks defiant. 

Then, above this sombre pageant 
See! the clouds that lower, breaking. 
And a child against the azure 
Standing with his gaze appealing! 
Lo, a little child shall lead them, 
Lo, the child heart, loving, tender, 
Shall redeem this world of sorrow! 



THE TOIL OF WIZARD WHEELS 

ELVES all invisible serve us virith tireless toil, 
Thralls elemental subdued by o'er-mastering man, 
Genii that come at our call on their weird wings of fire. 

Hist! like a lightning-bolt flashes our warning afar, 
Borne by the goblins erratic on mystical waves, 
Startling the nations that list to the missive in awe. 

Weariless gnomes roll the myriad wheels of the world. 
Roaring with might irresistible onward they rush. 
Bearing the restless insatiable multitude on. 

Spirits titanic are turning the wild wheels of toil. 
Grinding and crushing and pressing crude matter to 

form, 
Tossing the shuttles in looms and transmuting the ore. 

Ah, this tempestuous spirit of steel and of steam, 
Wires electrified, dynamos, motors enthralled, 
Madly onrushing for man with ironical roar! 

Whom do they serve with their magic of wizard-work 
mighty? 

49 



The Toil of Wizard Wheels 



Mastered by potentates merciless claiming the toll of 

their toil, 
Clutching the fruits of their labor that falls at their 

feet. 

List! 'tis the laughter of devils that mock as they turn 
Wheels of the mills of the fiends that are roaring anear, 
Wheels purgatorial grinding our souls as they turn. 

Listen! the clattering kobolds that beat at our hearts! 
Hearken ! the din of the demons usurping the work 
Freemen had erstwhile accomplished with song on their 
lips ! 

Witches' wheels, purring like cats by the fire of doom 
Charm us with whirling hypnotic, till lo, on our knees, 
Worshipful bow we entranced by the eidolon Power, 

Forgetting our mission on earth to create and to serve, 
God-will in man to emancipate matter with soul, 
Glorify passionless clay with our hands and our hearts. 

Let us, O brothers, establish our right to create! 

Let us again do the world's work and reap our reward, 

Let us dispel the enchantments that dazzle our sight. 

Then may we use eerie kobolds and gins for our needs. 
Not as their parasites, corpulent grown by their toil, 

50 



The Toil of Wizard Wheels 



But masters by right of the glory of work we have 
wrought. 

Then, like the seraphim chanting God's praise in the 

light, 
Man shall mould earth into heaven by joy-giving toil, 
Swelling the choir of the spheres with terrestrial praise. 



51 



AFTER LOSS 

THE living presence of the flesh we crave 
Until death summons us beyond the grave 
To dwell in spiritual realms that rise 
Beyond the confines of our earthly eyes. 

Through sorrow's ministering touch we grow; 
What erst we groped for, now in faith we know; 
That God shall not grind spirit into dust, 
Souls come and go — we wait in boundless trust. 

We know the Cosmos makes no mock of man, 
To leave unfinished what the Lord began; 
That no eternal irony of Fate 
Shall show the vista and then bar the gate. 

All we have cherished shall we treasure still; 
Above the atoms doth the spirit thrill. 
Today we serve ; tomorrow — O my soul 
Fear not the way that leads to freedom's goal! 



52 



MEMORIES 

MEMORIES, ah memories, 
Sweet haunting dreams of dead yet fadeless 
faces. 
Dear hallowed presences that cling so fast. 
Fond scenes that float forever through the past, 
Insouciant songs and laughter sounding still 
In hollow echoes from entombed years, 
How dear, how deathless all those idle tones! 

Loves lost, lives sundered, only memories 
Of tender words amid the woodland flowers, 
Once charged with passion, now but poignant pain, 
Faces that from the shadowy boscage peer, 
So fleeting, evanescent, yet so fair! 
All memories, sweet memories! 

Ah joys, now buried in the brain's deep crypt, 
Your ghosts still haunt the night in pallid shrouds. 
Bitter with mocking laughter and dead songs, 
And yet I welcome your cinereous throng; 
My friends, my kinsmen, my departed love. 
Come, be at peace with me, dear memories ! 



53 



THE SOUL OF THINGS 

THROUGH all this palpitating phantasmagoria, 
Through all this vibrating, pulsing, throbbing 
scene 
I would reach down to the soul of things — 
Peer behind the jaunty plumes of the jay, 
Listen beyond his mocking laughter loud, 
See into his bright impudent bead eyes 
And say : O brother spirit, what art thou ? 

Gaze through the tremulous whispering redwood 

branches. 
Penetrate the ruddy bark and the fragrant wood, 
Not as the ax seeks the core, but with the eye of love. 
And ask of this venerable sage of the mountain slope, 
Who art thou, kinsman, that thou dost comfort me? 

Scan the golden trumpet of the mimulus 

That blows upon the marshy mountain meadows. 

And back of the golden flare of the blithe calyx 

Behold the dear life of the unfolding flower ; 

See the real, the divine spirit, and say unto it, 

Sister, I love you — ■ you and I of the same Father. 

54 



The Soul of Things 



Look into the soil and the stalwart rock 
Deeper than ever well or mine has bored, 
Deeper than the enchanted crystal locked 
And sealed in granite tombs, aye deeper 
Than glist'ning nuggets in the veined quartz. 
Look into the soul of the mountains vast and cry, 
" O brother mine, I greet you, I salute you ! 
Let me rest upon your mighty shoulders grim." 

Cast mine eyes aloft into the illimitable blue 
Where dapplings of white cloud drift silent past, 
And search through the whiteness of congealed mist, 
Aye, fathom the azure of the vault of heaven 
And cry out unto the spirit of the air, 
" ^therial one, O let me look on thee ! " 

Then, ah, then, I gaze into the eyes of love 

That image the mountains and the trees and the sky. 

Deep, deep within enraptured eyes I peer. 

Longingly and tenderly I look where the uplifted lid 

With fringed curtain hath unveiled the tinted iris. 

Into the dark mysterious well of the pupil. 

Into the fathomless fount of life where a kindred soul 

awaits me. 
And I whisper: " My treasured one, the secret here 

is guarded. 
Thine eyes are the doorway to the throne of the Most 

High!" 

55 



TO THE BUILDERS OF THE NEW CITY 



o 



WORKINGMEN with cranes, steam drills and 
engines panting loud, 
Bolting and riveting great frames of steel and burying 

all 
In concrete casings, building mighty piles of stone and 

tile. 
Why all this stir and noise, this hauling and hoisting 

near and far? 
And the jovial workmen cried: "Our city, earth- 
quake gripped and swayed. 
By fire ravaged and devoured, was well-nigh swept 

away. 
And now we are uprearing it anew, more stately 

planned. 
More strong, more fair than ever it had been if left 

unscathed," 



" 'Tis well," I answered, " but O workmen knowest 
not that some 

Who saw your city burn gave up their lives in serving 
you. 

Feeding and clothing and sheltering you in dire ad- 
versity ? 

56 



To the Builders of the New City 

They too are building cities, fairer than you have 

planned or dreamed, — 
Cities of golden deeds of sacrifice and loving thought, 
And some day you will learn from them to rear more 

strong and true 
A spirit city that no shock of fate can move or mar, 
A city of unw^orldliness, of truth and brotherhood." 



57 



'TIS WELL 

'npIS well, 'tis well! — 

•A What? 
Why, all's well! 
The felon in his cell? 
Aye, somehow 'tis well. 
The marriage bell. 
The death knell. 
Surely all is well. 
We but seem to rush pell mell 
To the very brink of Hell. 
Why, I cannot tell, 
But God knows 'tis well. 



58 



OUR BROTHERS OF THE FIELDS AND 
TREES 

T DREAMED that I was Francis of Assisi 
■■■ In shadowy daisy field of misty dawn, 
The children of the air, my ministrants. 
Flocking about with matins of sweet song. 

" My tiny choristers of field and tree. 
Blithe winged disciples," so my sermon ran, 
" I bring the word of God to comfort you, 
Good tidings of our Savior Christ, the risen." 

And thereupon wings flapped about my face 
And cries derisive rang from feathered throats. 
" You of the Titan race," they shrilly called, 
" Who preach of love and seek us but to slay, 
Apostates revelling in lust of blood ! " 

A mother robin 'plained : " What bliss was mine. 

What hope, what promise in those eggs of blue, 

Snug in my plastered cradle hid away 

Until the prying bandit eyes had pierced 

My leafy screen and my dear home despoiled ! " 

" Alas," outpiped the quail, " the huntsman came 
And slew my chosen mate, and called it sport, 
Wliile I am left in lonely copse to mourn." 
59 



Our Brothers of the Fields and Trees 

Then with a wail of anguish winged anigh 
A snowy egret like an angel white 
Out of the mist of heaven to challenge me: 
" A host of wings erstwhile amid the trees, 
A throng of mothers' hearts about the nests! 
Ah little did they dream of ravage drear, 
That mothers of the lordlier race of men 
So craved our nuptial dower of airy plumes 
That they should have us slain in wantonness 
While all our little ones with piteous cries 
Awaited the slow stealing on of death." 

Thereat the frantic birds came clamoring round 
To mob me from the grove with mocking scorn. 
When loud a gun pealed forth its breath of doom. 
Some passing sportsman's challenge to the throng. 
And lifeless fluttered down a feathery form. 
Startled I roused me from my sombre dream 
But shook not off the woodland reverie. 

What is this life we take so wantonly ? 
A spark of God's great love so stamped upon 
Because we have the craft and lust to kill ! 
What Golden Rule is made for man alone ? 
The beast looks in yours eyes and cries you shame. 
Let us renounce blood sacraments and dare 
To live untainted by corrupting flesh. 
And in the might of tenderness rejoice. 
60 



Our Brothers of the Fields and Trees 

Methinks that Buddha's way leads unto peace 
Through kinship with the least and lowliest lives. 
All are God's children, even as thou and I, 
United in the spirit brotherhood, 
And in th' eternal reckoning shall be 
Accounted in the great Creator's plan. 



6i 



THE MASTER 
In Memory of Henry Holmes 

WE press the hemlock to the lips of Socrates, 
Our Christ we crucify, Jeanne d'Arc we cast 
to flames. 
And Shelley banish as an infidel. 

O master of celestial music's realm, 
O comrade in the world of melody, 
What must we sufFer as we Godward yearn ! 

Pain is the price of beauty, and in vain 
We conjure up fair pageantries of sound. 
To ears that hear not, offering our prayer, 

O dreamer of fair dreams melodious. 

Thy gift of love to hearts that heed thee not. 

Why are God's emissaries so denied ? 

But slowly shall the sleeper find his own. 
His tribute to soul beauty gaining power. 
Swelling adown the years its lofty plea. 

Knocking at hearts' sealed chambers till they ope 
In wonder to the message, and we hear 
62 



The Master 

Lips murmur: Ah could we have known the man, 
How would we then have loved and honored him ! 

Too late! too late! 

We stone our prophets and then mourn their fate, 
Pronounce anathemas before we praise. 
Cry out the wrongs we cannot rectify, 
Deny the master when we see him pass, 
Question and cavil when he pleads for grace. 
Then, when the noisy world vouchsafes acclaim 
Cry hail ! But he is dead. Long live the king ! 

Dead did I say? O God, forgive. 

We die but to more truly live. 

Free from the dross of earth that weighs 

And cumbers the sad soul with weary days. 

Hark! canst not hear great Bach's immortal strain. 
And Beethoven's high paeans of God-like pain? 
The maestro plays today in other spheres. 
And could we hear him it would startle tears 
To our cold eyes and quicken the slow beat 
Of hearts that throb not with prophetic heat. 

Ah will we never learn that love is best, 
That each great soul that toils in beauty's quest 
Creates not creeds and forms to stifle soul 
But builds a rainbow span from goal to goal, 
63 



The Master 



From earth to heaven, from flesh to spirit pure? 
O doubting heart, of this one truth be sure. 
Though worlds may waste and suns grow dead and 

cold, 
God cannot spare one gleam of the sun gold 
Of love, but treasures all to be 
Builded in beauty for eternity. 



64 



ON HEARING MUSIC 

To Adela Verne 

BUILDER of sky pavilions of God-aspiring tone, 
Reared unto radiant glory and fashioned of spirit 
alone ; 
Wi elder of mystical melodies woven of tremulous sound, 
Hymning of angels attends thee, and splendor of heaven 
is round. 

Hush'd is the air and breathless as melodies liquidly 

glide, 
Swelling into a tumult and sweeping the brain like a 

tide, 
Storming the sea of passion and shouting triumphant 

glee, 
For the soul from its fetters is loosened and music hath 

set it free. 

Out of the temples of cloudland, priests in processional 
far 

Fare away singing forever in quest of the ultimate star ; 

Chargers of heav'n are trampling the rainbow paths 
that span 

The haunts of the hymning seraphs with this earth- 
bound home of man. 

65 



On Hearing Music 



And list! 'Tis the silver footfalls of the wraiths of 

the wandering spheres, 
And the ghosts of the host of the masters returned on 

the tide of years, 
Living again and loving the world that has spurned 

them long, 
Binding fond hearts with courage, and bidding fond 

hope be strong. 

Challenging man with music and charging him soar 

from earth, 
Bursting the chrysalis custom at radiant Psyche's birth ; 
Freeing the flesh from thralldom, winging the man with 

fire, 
For what of the strife and hunger, save to make the 

soul aspire? 

You who commune with the masters, with craft to 

reveal their hearts, 
Know all the pain and the rapture which the grace of 

your giving imparts ; 
Fleeting the sounds as they follow and into the silence 

glide. 
But sweet is the dream that lingers and strong are the 

joys that abide. 



66 



THE PAINTER 
William Keith 

WITH senses dulled and eyes lacklustreless 
We look on nature, having not the key 
To world-old treasuries of beauty, free 
Alone to haunters of the wilderness, 

To spirits who in solitude commune 
In that dim world of fancy not of earth 
Where teeming treasuries of thought have birth 

And souls with tremulous beauty are in tune. 

We, having eyes that see not, needs must learn 
From them who look beneath the passing show. 
Enkindling nature with the ardent glow 

Of spirits who toward hallowed altars yearn? 

Our restless sense-enthralled lives are spent 
In fruitless quests that boot us naught of worth 
Unless we fashion something out of earth 

To yield us beauty and divine content. 

So unto you, good friend, I turn and say. 
Well done O toiler who unceasingly 
Has striven with nature's show for mastery. 

Has wrought fair scenes that will not fade away. 
67 



The Painter 



You reverently have gazed on hill and tree, 
On cloud-hung sky transcribed in glassy pool, 
On snowy mount and shadowy canon cool. 

On all of California's pageantry. 

And with obedient brush portrayed her moods 
Attuned to your own high imaginings 
Of haunted woods and skies an angel's wings 

Had fanned amid celestial solitudes. 

Nature, so filtered through a poet's soul 
That only beauty stays in glorious guise, 
Startles us as we look in fresh surprise 

On wind-tossed trees and sunset clouds that roll, 

On purple vistas through the shadowy boughs, 
On golden oaks where tranced lovers stray. 
And meadows pranked in tender green of May 

Or sere when toilers stack the rounded mows. 

So friend, interpreter of nature's heart. 
Creator of a world of radiant dreams, 
Transfigurer of evanescent beams 

Of sun that from the cloudy heavens dart, 

I hail you master, by the western sea, 
To you we owe all loving gratitude 
For this rich treasure of a life imbued 

With beauty, spent in toil so lavishly 
68 



The Painter 



That all might share the vision you possess, 
In reverent transcripts of the golden light, 
In fond communings with the holy night 

Revealing nature's strength and tenderness. 



69 



TO INA COOLBRITH 
The California Poetess 

WISTFUL the grace of the autumn with mellow- 
ing mist in the valleys, 
With herbage green of the early rains when life in the 

sered grass rallies; 
Gracious the wane of the season when th' wind in the 

laurels is sighing, 
For we know that the spring is awaiting to rise from 

the year that is gloriously dying; 
Even as the brown leaves fall from the bough are the 

green buds bursting. 
And the angel of death holds the cup of love to the 

lips with longing thirsting. 

Afar o'er the region in rapture the spirit of beauty has 
printed 

God's seal on the radiant land of his loving and th' 
grace of the sun-king has glinted 

From the ranges of sky-searching granite to the foam- 
rimmed roaring ocean 

Where th' orient winds o'er the fretted sea have winged 
in their wild commotion ; 

And th' rune of the surf and the croon of the pines and 
the whisper of flowers, 
70 



To Ina Coolbrith 



Commingled in chorals ascend from the vales and the 

high imperial towers, 
Singing of El Dorado, of the realm that we know is 

truly 
The Golden Gate where the spirits await on their way 

to the Ultima Thule. 

O uncrowned queen of the minstrels who sing in the 

wild-wood hollows, 
Songs like the tremulous thrush's are thine as the 

gloaming the hot day follows, 
Songs that are throbbing with longing and sobs of the 

dusk wind stealing, 
Songs of the heart of the care-ladened host, their 

tumultuous hopes revealing. 
Little the world will listen to the rustle of angels 

winging. 
And the gold-mad throng will catch but an echoing 

throb from the strains you are singing. 
But long may you sing as the bird sings because of a 

heart o'erflowing. 
And strong may the tones of your lute outring from the 

depths of a spirit glowing. 

O we who have stood in the shadow and looked on the 

light in its glory, 
O we who have suffered alone and in silence, or broken 

in song the heart story, 

71 



To Ina Coolbrith 



We know, do we not, that the bounty of beauty through 
sorrow is given. 

That the most mellifluous measures of music betoken 
a heart that is riven. 

As the swan with the dart at its breast sings bewilder- 
ing strains in dying, 

And the leaves frost-bitten flame forth in glory, their 
banners of triumph flying, 

As the rose exhales its fragrance when its petals are 
crushed and sundered, 

And the laurel perfumes the ax unfeeling that into its 
core has blundered. 

So, when the heart is awearied with the 5'ears with 

their mocking laughter, 
And the witches' gaze in the crystal sphere scarce sees 

what is coming after. 
To the Spirit Ineffable turn we, in trust that the 

cosmos around us 
Was builded of beauty forever in widening spheres to 

enfold us and bound us, 
Was builded of love so enduring that the flesh unto 

ashes returning 
Shall leave the soul free on its journey of song through 

the bright empyrean upyearning. 



72 



FATE 

C'NAPPING and snarling and gnawing insatiate, 
^ Fate is a dog with a bone in its teeth ; 
Fate is a cat with a quivering mouse 
And it tosses its prey in the air for sport : 
Lo, I am the bone, and I am the mouse! 

Fate is a player of tennis with his racket, 
Batting the ball in the game of life. 
And I am the ball flying hither and thither ; 
Fate is a chess-player studying his moves, 
And I but a pawn in the game on the board. 

At least, such I was till I roused me and rallied 
To play in the game with a vim and a will ; 
To be not the blind sport of Fate the inscrutable, 
Not the bone or the mouse or the ball or the pawn. 
But the player who matches with Fate, and wins! 



73 



THE JOY BRINGER 

/^UT of the mountains a fay-child came laughing to 

^^ me, 

And the balsam of pines was in her breath, and her 

hair was free, 
Wind-toyed and wild, and her brown eyes looked in 

mine. 
And her berry-red lips quivered with wanton witchery 
As she cried: " Behold, I am the joy bringer! I am 

the joy bringer! 

Sound of all sweet bird songs was in her tone, 
Field-larks a-fluting out of autumn corn. 
Reed-calls of red-wings from the cat-tails blown, 
The arabesque of th' robin in the pines at morn. 
Were wafted to my heart by the tones of the eerie 
singer. 

The glad surf singing on moon-bright coral shore, 
Sound of the wind in the woodland, of the patter of 

rain on the leaves, 
Sound of the purling brooklet, conning its love-dream 

o'er, 

74 



The Joy Bringer 



Sound of the spell that the voices of love about me 

weaves 
Were all in the tones of the fay-child, the joy bringer. 

Her elf-eyes sparkled with laughter as she beamed on 

me, 
And the wild abandon of childhood graced her lithe 

limbs in play. 
Fay-child, bewildering, winsome, thou boldest my heart 

in fee. 
Come, take me forth into cloud-land, for I would be up 

and away. 
Out of the world with thee, my lark, my joy-bringer ! 

Then she laughed again and faded, like a wraith of mist 
in the sun, 

I stretched forth my arms to enfold her, but the night- 
dew chilled my palm. 

O little flower of the fairies, I had nearly plucked you 
and won 

Out of the night and the tumult the heart's eternal 
balm: 

Hark, afar, and fainter, the song of my fay-child, the 
joy bringer! 

But never again for me will the world roll on in its 

madness. 
In its wild unheedful quest of the bubbles a child may 

burst, 

75 



The Joy Bringer 



For lo, I have laid in my heart the golden promise of 

gladness, 
Have quaffed of the chalice of love, v^^ith its quenchless 

spirit thirst, 
Have harked to the song of the fay-child, the joy 

bringer. 



76 



LOVE'S DOWER 

TN God's vast universe I stood alone 

-■■ And watched the stars whirl on their destined 

way, 
Amid the firmament afar they shone 

As from my peak I marked them in dismay. 

An ant I crawled, so impotent and frail, 
'Neath incandescent worlds that swept about, 

This flickering candle life, of what avail 

With blazing suns on high my hopes to flout ? 

And then Love came and claimed me in the night, 
And lo, I grew until my spirit, fired 

By her immortal frenzy of delight. 
Unto the splendor of the stars aspired. 

Ah Love, we two in harmony create 

A universe of beauty and of power 
Wrought out of spirit mightier than fate; 

My bride hath brought the world to me for dower. 



77 



AT THE FERRY 

/'^HIRP out your cries of news, blithe sparrows of 

^^ the curb, 

But not for me, 

I read it all in a musty vellum tome : 

How this bedevilled wretch blew out the light 

Of life's dim candle, and the other 

Plucked the ripe fruit his master's sweat had grown; 

And yet another wooed and won the wife 

His friend had placed upon a pedestal. 

Such the world's tidings flung i' th' face of crowds 
That press and jostle towards the ferry! 
Clang! The gates slam shut. 
But still the sombre drove comes surging on. 

Be not so eager, tense-faced hurrying host. 
Anon the gates will open to receive you all ; 
Charon, the ferryman, refuses none who come. 
Gray-beards and babes alike pass through the open gate. 

So ends your feverish day, O city folk who rush 

Pell mell adown life's street to catch the outgoing 

boat. 
The night is black upon the bay, and damp 

78 



At the Ferry 

The sea-mist sweeps, enfolding craft and passengers ; 
But still they come, onrushing like the stream of Fate 
Unto the Stygian shore where waits the ferryman. 

Ah many and many a time have I been told farewell 
By friends, imperious summoned to cross that darksome 

way. 
And I have stood so wistful on the shore 
And waved adieu and seen the ferry fade upon the 

night, 
Knowing that never would those dear ones tread with 

me 
Again the old fa'miliar city streets of home. 

"Some word, dear heart, O send to me!" I fondly 

cried, 
" Some treasure token from the shadow haunts of sleep, 
That I may know j^ou have been safely wafted o'er! " 
And then, from out the night, a snowy sea-gull flew 
Straight unto me, and at my feet let fall a plume. 
I seized it, and thereon in letters as of flame 
I read the name of my beloved passenger. 



79 



THE PEOPLE OF THE GRAVES 
Part I 

WAN is the moon tonight, 
And its pallid glinting light, 
Filtered thro' the fleeting clouds, 
Wavers o'er the silent crowds 
Of the city of the dead, 
Where, reluctant I am led. 
Stumbling o'er forgotten tombs. 
Hark, the restless ocean booms 
Far on some forbidding shore, 
Sobbing with its muffled roar. 
What is that? 'Tis but the breeze 
Sweeping thro' the cypress trees! 
O, that shriek ! An owl's cry 
Wafted from the troubled sky! 
Look! That figure standing lone! 
'Tis an angel hewn of stone! 
How the wannish moonlight sickens 
As the mist about me thickens; 
How the leaves are all a-sighing; 
There are voices now replying, 
Voices of the tolling bells. 
Wailing crash amid the dells, 
As a funeral train belated 

80 



The People of the Graces 



Wends its way to waiting grave. 

Heaven's balm I vainly crave! 

O my thumping heart, why beat so fast? 

Surely a human form went shuddering past ! 

Hist ! that long wail is the cry of the troubled dead ! 

Look ! yonder luminous light ! 'twas a ghost that before 

me sped ! 
Now from the graves a myriad spectres rise and veer, 
See the grim ghastly faces thro' the darkness peer. 
See all their phosphorescent fluttering robes so pale, 
Flapping in the shouting gale. 
Can it be the resurrection night? 

God I quail at the uncanny sight, 

At grewsome skeletons in cerements round, 

At ghosts or ghouls upstarting from the ground! 

Have mercy, save me from th' unhallowed spell, 

1 reel through darkness down the steeps of Hell. 

Part H 

Sweet wafted music lulls my soul distraught ; 
Sealed are mine eyes but peace hath come unsought. 
Have they borne me unto the church from the cruel 

storm ? 
Again the light, and lo, a radiant form 
Beckons me on and upward toward the choir 
Singing in rapture jubilantly nigher. 
Joyous now the bells are ringing, 
Chiming with the choir's singing, 

8i 



The People of the Graves 



And the organ pipes, a-quiver, 
Loud proclaim the blessed giver 
Of light and life and love! 
How she waves to me above, 
My radiant guide! 
Whate'er betide 

I will climb aloft where you abide! 
But see, the great cathedral arches fade 
While my guide smiles undismayed. 
Over clouds we wander free, 
Treading an aerial sea 
Golden lighted like the morn 
When the king of light is born. 

And about me is a vast processional 
Of joyous spirits sweeping up to Mars 
Where they dwell. 

Or wandering amid the radiant stars; 
Lo what are these fairy cities, 
With towers and minarets and spires. 
With fountains and all the heart desires? 
Where mothers sing little lilting ditties 
To dancing children and lovers roam 
'Mid flower-starred fields in the saffron gloam? 
I asked my guide, my radiant one. 
Whereat she smiled and put her lily arms 
About my neck and kissed me like the sun 
Kissing the flowers ere a cloud alarms 
These lovers of a wild-wood summer morn, 

82 



The People of the Graves 



And cried, " Behold beloved, now art thou reborn, 
No league of darkness clouds the grave for thee, 
From all death phantoms is thy spirit free! " 

And lo, joy fell upon me like a benediction bright. 

For through the Valley of the Shadow unto light 

Had I been led 

To hold high converse with the dead, 

To learn that our beloved shadow-sisters dwell 

In fields Elysian, paved with asphodel, 

That only haunters of the earthly plane, 

Frail neophytes who grow through sin and pain. 

Are chained and clogged with fetters that enmesh; 

But patience, brother, soon mayest thou discard the flesh 

To soar and sing like mating lark in May. 

For every mortal comes a bridal day 

When Death is wedded and the singing spheres, 

Enfolding with their choir Earth's vale of tears. 

Chants to the spirit on its star-strewn path 

The rapture of life's radiant aftermath; 

Chants of undying love and fadeless youth 

And beauty flowering on the tree of Truth. 

If this be thy demesne, O Death, I cry to thee: 

Praise the deliverer, Lord of Im.mortality ! 



83 



YEARNING AFTER THE INFINITE 

"OUDDHA, Confucius, Christ, 

-■^ Mahomet and Socrates! 

Shall we worship one as a god 

And scorn or forget the rest ? 

Is our skin brown, yellow or white? 

Were we born in the East or the West? 

Knowest not they are all divine? 
Teacher and prophet each? 
Be catholic as this great world 
With its wealth of life to give 
In praise of the living God. 

But no one can live or die 

That you and I be saved. 

No, we ourselves are Fate ; 

Salvation is ours alone 

To wrest from the hand of doom. 

When the preacher has had his say 
And the zealot has prayed his prayer, 
Come out where the stars are strewn 
And brood on the beauty of heav'n ; 
Then go to the world of men 
And live and labor and serve. 
84 



WAITING 

T3 E still, my heart, and wait 

■■-' While pulse-throbs thrill in temple and wrist, 

For the loved one comes not to her tryst ; 
Be patient, heart — 'tis fate! 

Wait as the weary moments pass. 
As the sand sifts thro' the mindless glass ; 
Wait as the bell booms out the hours — 
O'er summer skies the storm-cloud lowers! 

Wait as the dim ghost days glide past; 

Be still, my heart, 'tis life, 

And the way of it all is strife. 
Till we learn to stifle the pang at last. 

Wait as the still moons wax and wane — 
Is it meant to be that we wait in vain ? 
Wait with a stifled cry on the lip 
As the years like tears in Time's sea drip. 

I have watched the sea's horizon gray — 
Be still, my heart, and wait — 
But my ship sailed not adown the bay 
In thro' the Golden Gate. 
85 



Waiting 

Faith has burned to smoke and ashes 

But the Phoenix Hope leaps out of the flame ; 
Would that the weary heart might claim 

This boon as it heavenward flashes ! 

But no, we must wait, and forever wait 
Till the heart is still in its last long sleep, 

When the soul awakens to meet its fate 
And wends its way through the starry deep. 



86 



ON THE DEDICATION OF A DRINKING 
FOUNTAIN 

Alameda, California 

THE skies yielded up their bounty unto the earth; 
In the Sierra heights the thunder-cloud gave of 
its plenty, 

And the leaden curtain of the mist of the winter moons 

From seaward and the south swept in to drench the 
valleys ; 

Yea, the teeming mothers of the heavens gave birth to 
the rain children, 

And the earth was gladdened and sent up paeans of joy. 

The grass-blades were the prayers of the grateful land. 

And the happy flowers were the hymns of the exultant 
earth. 

Then all the little rillets began to sing songs of praise; 

Jubilant canticles of swelling brooks arose from every 
mountain side, 

And the voices of streams all joined in a grand halle- 
lujah chorus. 

And the rivers chanted in deep-voiced harmony thanks- 
giving to the Sender of Rain. 

O ye babbling brooks and mellifluous rills, 
O ye laughing waterfalls and crystal cascades, 

87 



On the Dedication of a Drinking Fountain 

O ye joyous life-giving waters, careering deliriously 

downward, 
Sing Te Deums triumphal on the awakening of spirit 

from earth! 

In the mountains loom the titan watchmen pine-trees, 
And the vast Sequoias rear their sentinel towers anear 

the streams; 
In the valley-lands the oaks, benignant guardians, 
Spread their gnarled boughs beside the rivers. 
There the wild birds come to drink. 
And the thirsty bear leads forth her cubs to lap the 

tide, 
And the native woman, grinding acorns in potholes by 

the river. 
Scoops up the water in the hollow of her hand to quench 

her thirst. 

Then, lo, another day, another race, another world ! 
The white man, he who loves power more than beauty, 
The ravager of nature, the destroyer of the forest, 
The slayer of all wild things, of trees and flowers and 

birds, 
Cometh unto the land, and, glorying in his might. 
Lays waste all things most fair. 
He buildeth cities and the joyous streams he leadeth 

into murky sewers, 
Yea, the sweet springs he poUuteth and hideth beneath 

the ground. 



On the Dedication of a Drinking Fountain 

Where once were flower-starred banks and sighing 

trees 
He buildeth drear walls and sad unlovely temples. 
But the still small voice of the brooklet aye whispers 

unto him, 
And the mute appeals of thirsty brutes still clamor for 

the life-giving water. 
Though the deer and the mountain lion no longer roam 

abroad, 
The helpless beasts by man subdued look up into his 

face 
And silent beg for drink. 

Then somewhere in the great cold heart of man 

Awakens the spirit of tenderness and compassion, 

And the selfish monster arouses out of his lethargy, 

And the God-spark kindles love in him. 

And he knows that the beast is his brother; 

Aye, he knows that there is but one family and one 

Father, 
And he loves the helpless ones and stretches out a hand 

to them. 
Come, come O children, little brothers and great. 
Let us drink together, for this is the holy sacrament, 
This is the communion service in which we all may 

join, 
This, the life-giving water, O my brothers, little birds 

and faithful dogs and patient horses, 



89 



On the Dedication of a Drinking Fountain 

The same sweet water that quenches your thirst and 

mine, 
Drink of this holy fountain reared in the midst of the 

sordid city, 
Drink that you may be appeased and satisfied, 
Drink, for such is the will of God, my brothers. 
And he who thinks of the least of the children of the 

all-merciful Father, 
Aye he shall be rewarded with the gift of love from on 

high. 
And the bond of fellowship shall gather him in with 

its benediction. 



90 



THE SECRET OF LIFE 

LIGHT dreamings of fancy that waft me afar, 
In thy regions romantic, 'mid days that are dead 
I hnger in gladness and through the cool shadows 
That waver so fairly, gaily I roam. 

I rove where the passionate flowers are lifting 
Slim stems through the covert to look on their God ; 
I linger in moments of longing and loving 
When heart speaks to heart through the beats of a song. 

Through heart-beats and song-beats, through pain and 

through joy, 
Through the longings unsated no words can express, - 
I found in my dreamings the secret of life, 
And lo it was love that I clasped at my heart ! 



91 



WITH THE DEAD 

l\yr OTHER! Is it you, O Mother? 

^^■^ So young, so joyous grown, 

You who methought had died 

Long years agone ! O Mother, 

You take me in your arms 

As when I was a child. 

Mother, O Mother ! 

I have been ill, so ill. 

So racked with pain, dear Mother, 

And then I fell asleep 

To waken here with you. 

To find you watching me 

As was your wont of eld. 

Mother, my Mother! 

How light it seems, 

How brightly glows 

The diamond sparkling sky ! 

With rainbow mist 

And amethyst 

And your smile. Mother mine ! 

And who comes down 
Yon flower-strewn lane? 
What maiden blithe 
With golden hair, 

92 



With the Dead 



All robed in white, 

With nimbus crowned, 

And gleeful child 

Sporting about her like a fairy elf? 

Nay, speak, O vision! 

It cannot be I see aright, 

It cannot be this elfin child 

Is mine, it cannot be that you 

Who left me once to join the dead 

Have come to me again! O speak! 

The wraith, effulgent opened wide her arms. 

And smiled with such a wistful yearning smile, 

It seemed an angel out of Paradise 

Had come to me and claimed me for her own. 

But even as I reached to her embrace 

She gravely shook her head and said me nay: 

" They need you in the sphere below today, 

And I can wait beloved; I can wait." 

Those spirits twain 

With th' happy child 

Dissolved before my yearning eyes. 

The flowers, the light, 

All, all grew dim 

And I was left in darkness lone. 

The doctor with his fingers on my pulse 
Spake softly to the nurse: " His breath returns, 
He has survived the crisis — all is well ! " 
93 



THE AWAKENING 

STRANGE marvel tales I read as in a trance, 
But none so wonder-wrought as this of life, 
Beginningless and endless, wherein dance 

The puppets we call men, in ceaseless strife 
Ascending out of chaos for a day 
And melting like the April snow away. 

Whence came they and to what far land they fare, 
These shadow spectres of a world of dream? 

I see them glide along the way of care 

To merge to-morrow in oblivion's stream, 

These phantoms trailing through the troubled night, 

Hallucinations bat-like in their flight. 

And all their petty anguish and deceit. 

Their wasting love and laughter's transient peal, 
Flung at the mocking god's unheeding feet 

In vain implored their purpose to reveal, 
As souls emerge to flicker in the gloom 
Until Death snuffs them out in timeless doom. 

But O awake, somnambulist, and see 

Behind the pageant of the dreams of fate 
The living spirit of eternity 

94 



The Awakening 



Revealed with power of love to consecrate 
This moment where the past and future meet, 
The weary farer Life in joy to greet. 

The yesterdays, to-morrows, what are they ? 

To-day sums up the largess of the soul. 
And be it clothed in spirit or in clay, 

In heaven or earth what matters how time roll 
If we but see and know our dreams are true 
And God is back of all the things we do ! 



95 



THE VENUS OF MELOS 

OOUL-SICK I fell back in my easy chair; 
^ Dim glowed the fire, my books neglected lay; 
'Twas night, so very hushed the scrambling mouse 
Affrighted, cowered silent in the walls. 

Of what avails this delving after truth, 
This tearing out the heart of things to watch 
Its beating for the nonce, this eager clutch 
At dancing motes that after all are dust? 
What, is the worm the master of the feast. 
To whose grim jest we each obeisance make? 

Thus brooding, down-cast, as my idle glance 
Roved o'er the shelved tomes, it chanced to fall 
On Aphrodite — she in Melos found 
Shorn of her arms but still supremely fair — 
Pedestaled just before the purple arras; 
And, as I looked at her, I mocking cried. 
Poor Venus, now indeed art thou disarmed. 
Thou hast been treasured past thy Golden Age 
That men might scoff at thee, so impotent — 
Goddess of Love now turned to bric-a-brac! 
96 



The Venus of Melos 



But, as I spoke, her sinuous figure stirred. 
And from her limbs the careless draperies fell; 
Her arms restored, upreached with winsome grace 
As lithely from her height she leaped adown, 
A quivering goddess, born as from the foam, 
Standing in all her beauty at my feet. 

Whereat I cried out: "Goddess, Aphrodite! 
Can it be true that thou hast come to me 
Out of the Golden Age of Greece to bear 
Me living witness that thine ancient realm 
Of beauty is not whelmed to nothingness? 
Can it be true that I indeed behold 
The splendor and the majesty sublime 
Of human form in all its purity. 
Divine embodiment of perfect love ? " 

And Aphrodite answered me : " Alas 

How changed the world, how dulled the heart of 

man 
Since that bright morning-tide of joy and love 
When fervid orisons men paid to me. 
'Tis not that I am envious of the race 
Debased from fealty to beauty's shrine, 
But deep I pity their perverted hearts. 
Could they but look to me and learn again 
The immaterial joys that beauty brings. 
Soul joys untainted by the greed of men. 
Once more might Naiades breathe pleading strains 
97 



The Venus of Melos 



Of ravishment on dulcet river reeds 
To lure unhappy earthlings unto peace; 
Again would every flow'r that breaks the sod 
Be bright with eloquence of beauty's fire, 
And mortals, peering thro' the forest shade. 
Startled, would gaze on Dryads 'mid the trees. 
And the forbidden bowers Elysian, 
With blithe narcissus, rose and hyacinth 
Bespread, would bloom in loveliness again. 
Return to beauty, O benighted one. 
And open all thy soul to gain its dower 
Of joy and rapture. Let thy every sense 
Drink to the full this nectar of the gods 
Until thy being thrills in harmony 
With all the blessed Olympian hierarchy." 

I strove to answer her, but, awed to stone, 
Transfixed in adoration, silent sat. 
Mine eyes were filmed with mist and in a swoon 
I sank, while fainter grew the haunting tones 
Of Aphrodite, pleading beauty's sway. 
Then, from my stupor, sudden roused to life, 
I looked and saw the armless statue lorn, 
Battered and bruised by scorn of centuries, 
But calmly poised as if awaiting there 
The Golden Age that would again acclaim 
Her sovereign mistress o'er the hearts of men. 
And straight I vowed that I would consecrate 
My life, a votive offering unto her, 
98 



The Venus of Melos 



And cry out beauty in the market place, 
Till men should pause in their mad rush for gold 
And stand transfixed at Aphrodite's shrine 
And learn that love and beauty are the law. 



99 



THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS 

LONG time agone I went a-looking 
For the little goddess of Happiness, 
And year on year I roamed unceasing 
In quest of her, my heart's desire; 
Seeking in the high places. 
Searching all the low places. 
Up and down the world I went 
In quest of her, my heart's desire. 

To some she seemed to come unsought. 

But not to me who longed to find her. 

The blessed goddess of Happiness, 

So shy, so coy, so hid away 

She seemed to flee whene'er I called. 

" O wait, O stay, elusive one," 

I cried, but only in reply 

I heard the rustle of her wings, 

I saw her shadow on the grass, 

I caught her laughter from the skies. 

And lo, she had eluded me ! 

Ah, fairy goddess of my desire, 

I shall capture you yet, I shall find you and snare you. 
Even as Maui, the South Sea god, 
lOO 



The Quest of Happiness 



Trapped in his net the emerging sun ! 
You shall be love-captive unto me, 
Sunshine goddess of Happiness, 
Some day before I yield the quest. 
Even as Sir Percival who won the grail 
Will I hold you, my holy one ! 

And so I went forth and ransacked the mountains 

To find only Solitude waiting me there 

With tears in her eyes, she was so lonely, 

And I called beseechingly unto her : 

" O fair one whither away has flown 

The fairy goddess of Happiness? " 

And she answered : " Before you came anear 

She was here, in the pine trees 

With the chickadees and squirrels, 

She was here, in the snow-flakes 

That whirl about my summits. 

She was here in the glacier streams 

That leap and laugh adown my canons. 

But now she has flown as the birds fly away 

When the gathering blasts of the winter assail them." 

Then I thought, perchance she has fled to the ocean. 
And I sailed forth to wander illimitable reaches 
With white crests bright glistening 
Upon the blue waters where trade winds were blowing. 
And southward where tempests 
Were howling in darkness, 
lOI 



The Quest of Happiness 



Down, down o'er the ice-floes 

Of wild seas Antarctic. 

There too was the sad one, the mistress of sorrow. 

The same omnipresent one. Solitude, hovering 

O'er cloud-haunted troublous reaches of ocean; 

And again I cried unto her, yearning, imploring: 

" O fair one, whither away has flown 

The little goddess of Happiness?" 

And again she replied, as of eld in the mountains: 

" She was here, on the wave-crests. 

In the arch of the rainbow. 

On the back of the albatross 

Sweeping and swinging; 

She was here with the petrels 

Before the storm fleeing, 

'Mid the great bergs majestic 

Of ice-crags of azure, 

But now she has fled as the sun-beams that hide 

When the clouds crowd together to darken the day." 

So I went unto the city, aye seeking 

For the little goddess of Happiness, 

And I bethought me, surely she. 

Like all the rest, is here for sale, 

And I will earn her with a store of gold; 

Like all the rest she hath her price. 

I wrung the gold from hands unwilling, 
I snatched it from my brother's purse, 
1 02 



The Quest of Happiness 



I plucked it from the sordid poor; 

I could not stop at any cost 

For I must gain the gold I need 

To buy you, little goddess of Happiness. 

Anon my coffers were stored with gold, 
Gold filched in tolls from rich and poor. 
And now, methought, shall I go forth 
To buy you, elusive goddess of Happiness. 
But when I asked of men the way 
To th' market where happiness was sold 
They laughed and said the stock was gone, 
No more had they at any price. 

" Alas," quoth I, " my quest is vain, 

I will seek no more to find delight. 

My little goddess is but a myth!" 

So I gave away my riches, 

Cast aside my vain desires 

And forgot my futile longings, 

When one night, alone, in silence 

As I marked the clock's loud ticking. 

Spake a soft voice in my ear: 

" Dost thou know me not, beloved? 

I am the goddess of Happiness 

Come to abide with thee now and forever." 



103 



LOVE IS ALL 

FROM the womb 
To the tomb — 
This is life, O love! 
Panting breath 
Unto death 
All the strife, O love! 

From the light 

Into night 

Must we go, dear heart; 

We but vi^ed 

When the dead 

We know, and part! 

But, ere day 

Haste away, 

Let us live, O love! 

Let us sing. 

Let us cling 

And forgive, O love! 

Should we miss 
The fond kiss 
Life were vain, dear heart! 
104 



Love Is All 

Should we yearn, 

And yet spurn 

Love in Pain, dear heart? 

Heed, O heed 
This my creed — 
Love is all, O life! 
Past the grave 
It can save. 
It can call, O life! 

Death is naught 

We are taught. 

Life is king, dear heart; 

But above 

Life, is love — 

So I sing, dear heart! 



105 



THROUGH SORROW'S MIST 

Tr\ARK and inscrutable the will of Fate, 
■■-^ Deep as the ocean of all human tears, 

Since man's first passion woke to haunting fears! 
Before its fiat, silent, we await 

Our lot of grief or joy, our boon or bane. 

God! is Thy gift of love revealed in pain? 

Sometimes we strive and win or lose the prize; 
Sometimes we trust and toil for goals ahead. 
But still the sphinx's riddle runs unread. 

And still we gaze beyond with anxious eyes. 
Fearing yet hoping that the upturned scroll 
May spell its rune of solace to the soul. 

The heavy-winged hours of leaden pain 
Bear me unwilling on across the night, 
Voyaging O whither in my fearsome flight? 

But all my eager questionings are vain. 

Ah when will break the dawn? The cock's shrill 

cry 
Floats mocking up and dies in darksome sky. 

The gold we touch, to sordid dust descends; 

We clutch at power and totter to the grave; 

We turn to Love; ah she can surely save! 
Then Atropos with grim shears o'er her bends 
1 06 



Through Sorrow's Mist 



And snips the sacred strand, and Love is dead; 
Thus shall the Angel Death each mortal wed! 

I met a stranger on the King's Highway, 
A tattered gray-beard of the elden time, 
Who gripped me, walking in my lusty prime, 

And with soul-searching voice these words 'gan say: 
" O whither goest thou, what radiant bourne 
Lures thee, young rover, on thy road forlorn?" 

" I am a seeker of the spectral realm 
The triune Norns ineffable control — 
Truth, Love and Beauty — mistresses of soul, 

God-yearning spirits that shall overwhelm 
The carnal host in earth-entrammelled halls 
Where Greed is potentate and Lust enthralls." 

" The realm thou seekest," spake the ancient sage, 

" Is girt about with grief and hemmed with pain ; 

Thy quest shall verily be all in vain 
If thou canst not some mortal woe assuage. 

Cope with wan Sorrow till thy soul is free — 

Master of all the moods of misery." 

Ah many a year has lapsed ere I have learned 
The lesson conned in coping long with woe. 
Learned what in days agone I yearned to know 

When on the King's Highway the sage I spurned: 
That sorrow's mist veils God's effulgent light. 
And they who pierce it see the vision bright. 
107 



THE CHILD HEART 

THE shy flowers smile in the face of their father, 
the bountiful Bright One, 
The wild birds chant his praise when he smiles with 

the blessing of day; 
The child folk follow the wood-things into the wild 

with laughter, 
And you and I, beloved, shall follow them all away 
Into the fields of faery, unto the haunted wood. 
And serve them ever with gladness, and learn to be 

pure and good. 



io8 



DREAMING IN THE CROWD 

WHAT a world of loneliness 
This, the strange forbidding city 
Where the hosts of people pass 
With never a nod from maid or man, 
With never a smile from lass or lad! 

Are they real or shadow people 

As they pass me in the city? 

How they chatter, 

How they clatter. 

How they bang and clang and scuffle! 

But never a word to me is said. 

And not a sign or a sound is mine. 

O mind them not, these phantom beings, 
Heed them not, these walking puppets 
(Thus spake a voice to me) 
You who have your own companions. 
You who roam with crowds about you — 
Hosts of memories and fancies. 
Throngs of thoughts that live and linger, 
Dreams of love and haunting beauty, 
Sweet seductive recollections. 
Opiate spells o'er idle hours, 
109 



Dreaming in the Crowd 



Sudden nightmares big with terror, — 
All returning, pressing near you 
Like a swarm of bees importunate 
Buzzing round the empty hive. 

Come, O friendly thoughts, we'll wander 
Hand in hand amid the meadows, 
Golden glades of yester-year; 
Hark! the field-larks sweetly gurgle 
As within your eyes I peer! 
Little children crowd about us, 
Tugging with their tiny hands 
At the heart-strings, prattling, singing, 
Laughing in the misty morn. 

And who are you, gnarled hulk of man, 
Hobbling along, forlorn and glum, 
Amid the ruins o' the City of Doom? 
Ah yes, old palsy-stricken derelict, 
I know you. Sorrow! You in days agone 
Gloated to think you had o'ermastered me; 
But now your ashen face and whining voice, 
Innocuous, deceives my heart no more; 
Pass on, O white-haired renegade of life, 
I snap my fingers in your face and laugh; 
Slink by, thou vain imposter of the soul. 
For I have summoned to my memory feast 
More fitting guests, and would not have you near. 
Skulking amid the shadows at my door, 
no 



Dreaming in the Crowd 



Ho, royal comrades, Courage and Good Cheer, 

Youths with the tang and zest of life in your veins, 

Come, bide with me and keep me company. 

We will laugh and sing and frolic, — 

Hi you vagabonds of youth, 

Crowned like Bacchus with the vine, 

Blowing on your pipes of Pan, 

You with Naiads for companions, 

Dancing Dryades and wood-fauns! 

Evoi ! Evoi ! 

O joy, O joy! 

Breathe the air of the forest, 

Feel the balm of the rain. 

Shout and sing in the morning. 

Cry God speed to night! 

Ah where am I with wander fancies? 
Shriek of whistle, wheels a-rumble. 
Harsh inharmony of mortals 
Where a million counter motives 
Urge the frenzied horde to madness. 
Come, my love, my Eldinora, 
Wild fay of the western mountains, 
Take my hand, for I am blinded. 
Lead me from the feverish city, 
Guide me to your wilding woodland. 
Let us foot it to the forest, 
Teach me all the lore of love-land. 
Let me learn to live in quiet 
III 



Dreaming in the Crowd 



And forget the restless rabble. 

There my hopes and dreams of beauty 

I shall gather as a harvest 

In the hallowed haunts of spirit. 



112 



PRAYER 

CRAVING the beatific vision, cried 
A sage: " O where 'mid wildernesses wide 
Shall God be found to hearken to my prayer? 
For I have swept the circumambient air 
With mystic glass, star-ranging, plumbed the deep 
Where vasty silence in its brooding sweep 
Spells habitants of ocean in its thrall; 
Peered tiptoe through the leafy-arched hall 
Where Druid oaks their groined limbs uplift, 
And scaled the granite dome atop the clift, 
Aye searching for the Master of the Masque, 
The Lord creative at his timeless task. 

" But when the mask I lift, there shines no face ; 
Upon the wheel of time no fingers' grace 
Compels the clay to characters of life; 
I see but pulsing atoms clash in strife, 
Obedient to the urge of mindless law. 
And shall I pay my orisons in awe 
To this mute force that marks the heaven-wide path 
Of blazing suns, or with chaotic wrath 
Bursts worlds asunder into meteor dust? 
Or shall I kneel before the force august 
That gropes to life through chemic changes fine 
And flounders upward till it seems divine?" 
113 



Prayer 

No answer sighed the unconfiding wind, 

No answer roared the inarticulate sea; 

No token did the hungering pilgrim find, 

No seal of God 'mid earth's mortality. 

But when he reached a lorn metropolis 

Where men o'er wrought with gold's consuming fire 

Made mock of virtue in the marts, where bliss 

Evanished in the fever of desire, 

He sadly gazed about the multitude. 

Pitying the horde that passed him by with rude 

Contempt for one from gold emancipate. 

He could not leave these earthlings to their fate 

But toiled to lead them where in radiant beams 

The light of heaven on upturned faces streams, 

To lure them forth to look upon the blue 

That domes the world with beauty; and there grew 

A wonder in his heart as more and more 

He searched the human heart's unfathomed store. 

More bottomless than ocean, and more vast 

Than orbit of the comet sweeping past; 

More terrible than black tornado's breath. 

More gentle than the calm that follows death. 

" Lo I have searched through all insensate things 
For token of the Cosmic King of Kings, 
But found no sign. Now here in brother man 
I see the Master laboring at his plan. 
Gold-stifled though it be, the spark divine 
Down each soul-vista may be seen to shine, 
114 



Prayer 

Lighting the spirit paths to purer spheres. 

God! In myself Thy presence vast inheres, 

My larger self Thou art, wherein I stand 

In glad communion with that laboring band 

Of mortals, gross and fine, corrupt and pure, 

Creators of the world that shall endure 

Beyond the clash of stars, past suns grown cold. 

To this one creed in reverent faith I hold, 

That at the heart of each blest being lies 

God's presence, whispering: "Lagging mortal rise. 

In service of thy fellow-creatures strain. 

Increase of love shall be thy joyous gain; 

Seek for the truth and let it be the light 

To beacon thee aye upward toward the right. 

" Toil to create that beauty which shall free 
Crude earth and flesh from base mortality. 
Which shall bring heaven about us from the skies 
When God beholds his work through mortal eyes." 
This is my prayer: O God within my heart. 
Strengthen my will that I may live my part 
And be more full of service, thus to do 
In deeds of grace my prayer, and prove it true. 



"5 



FRIENDS 

T)OOR rum-soaked rounder of the tenderloin, 
^ Discarded remnant of the bargain counter, 
Give me your hand and talk to me, I pray, 
The more you fall, the more you need a friend. 

Frail painted plaything of the city streets. 
The poison of your kisses burns no more. 
The world may shun you as contaminate 
But in my heart I find a place for you. 

You little nameless playfellow of shame. 
The shame and infamy is all the world's; 
But, if your father dare not claim his own. 
Let me be foster father, friendless waif. 

The virtuous may peer through their lorgnettes. 
Gather their skirts about them to keep clean. 
But what care we? for they, poor things, are starved; 
Just throw a kiss to scandal and contempt! 



ii6 



NOW 

NOW is the day, 
Now is the hour, 
Now is the moment 
When eternity lies open to thy soul, 
When the everlasting moments converge in thee. 
Focus them with thy lens of thought 
Until the glittering rays of time 
Burn like a star of joy in thy firmament. 

Not all the golden pomp of yesterdays 
Nor all the roseate dreamings of tomorrow — 
Vain spectres of past bliss or future hopes — 
Can compensate for this, the gift thou holdest. 

O thou creator man. 
Fashioner of dreams into realities. 
Weaver of the warp and weft of thoughts 
Into a mantle that shall clothe thy nakedness. 
Filer of pyramids upon the base of truth 
To heaven pointing, 

More lasting than the stones by Cheops reared - 
Fashion in beauty. 
Build in radiance. 

Sing not of time nor of change nor of death, 
117 



Now 

But let a resounding paean of the immutable ring out; 
Chant in praise of the great world heart, 
Heart of thy microcosm, 
The essence of all, 
This instant, — now ! 



Ii8 



REMEMBERED LOVE 

OLD songs are singing in my brain, 
The songs we loved in happy days 
That then were bliss but now are pain 

Since we are wandering different ways — 
Sweet lingering songs that haunt and cling 
Close to the heart despite their sting. 

For love once known is ne'er forgot, 
The old enchanting spell still holds 
Despite new life that now enfolds 

Our sundered ways; for, plan and plot 

Howe'er we may to change our lot, 
Remembered love our being molds, 
And as we trudge o'er friendless wolds 

Still lures us tho' we heed it not. 



1 19 



A NEW YEAR ODE 

THE sun aslant the dial falls, 
The hours haste the dying year; 
And hark! The Destiny that calls: 
Awake, O sluggards in your halls, 
Shake off your apathy and hear! 

Bells through the rain and tempest peal 

Their challenge unto thee and me; 
Another round of time's swift wheel. 
Another chance for woe or weal. 
To live the life we know should be. 

To cast old creeds to winds of night, 

To crush the lusts we cherish still, 
To ope heart casements to the light. 
To let God's whisper tell the right; 
We know the road but lack the will. 

We worship power and obey; 

In envious strife we strain for gold; 
This is the talisman to-day. 
For this our very souls we pay — 

Behold our masters waxing bold. 
1 20 



A New Year Ode 



The glass is turned, the sand anew 

Sifts down its measured stream of time ; 
Take heart, for lo, there be a few 
Companions, stalwart for the true. 

Who still toward Sinai's summit climb! 

Ho bondsmen, break your self-forged chains 
That fetter soul, that cramp the mind; 

Count not in gold life's precious gains, 

For he who gives himself, attains 
Soul guerdon others ne'er may find. 

Then let the New Year bring new hope, 

New life, new light, new love, dear heart. 
Closed is the book; another ope 
Of larger faith, of broader scope — 
O read therein, and play your part! 



121 



THE REINCARNATION OF THE GIANTS 

WHAT! Have the giants come to earth again? 
Thor and the mighty Heracles reborn? 
We name them Steel and Steam, and their great mate 
The mailed hand of Zeus hurled down to man 
Out of the thunder-cloud — the protsean Fire ! 

Hail, heroes by metempsychosis born 

To work such deeds of wonder in the world! 

We doff our hats to you in silent awe. 

Then, as we stand amazed to contemplate 

This transmigration of star-wandering souls. 

Comes one anigh, more vast incalculably. 

In whose bright presence all these haughty ones. 

Like worlds dropped in the caldron of the sun. 

Melt and are dissipated into mist. 

Men call this hero Love, nor seem to know 

'Tis God Himself, incarnate in His children. 



122 



THE VOYAGE 

THIS is the fated day 
When we sail on our voyage of adventure; 
See, the sailors are weighing anchor, 
Singing their rousing chanty. 
And the sails are impatiently flapping. 
Does your compass point true to the lodestar? 
Is the ship's chronometer tested? 
Are the log and the quadrant provided? 
Have we charts giving reefs, coasts and islands? 

O soul, of my life-voyage the master, 
Sailing the sea of the future 
By breezes of fate wafted onward, 
Are you letting my ship drift unheeded, 
Or reckoning the way you are steering. 
Giving the course to the helmsman? 

See! Yonder a storm sweeps upon us. 
The sky lowers black and forbidding, 
The seas rise and smite us in fury, 
And hark! 'tis the roar of the breakers! 
Steer, steer for the open, O Helmsman! 
Get th' free sweep of ocean before you. 
No matter how wild the winds whistle, 
123 



The Voyage 

No matter haw mad the waves buffet, 
Stout-hearted, with tones as of thunder 
Shout your commands to the sailors, 
Keep to your course through the darkness! 

And when the dawn of the morrow 
Sees the sun rise o'er the wave-crests, 
We shall behold to the leeward 
A haven of refuge before us, 
A mystical isle of the tropics 
With glittering peaks unto cloudland 
And shimmering verdure alluring. 
On into port drifts the frigate, 
And hail, lovely harbor of refuge, 
For the name of our haven is Death! 



124 



A CHANT OF LOVE 

I AM America, 
Strong in the might of wishing well to all the 
world ! 
The blood of every race is in my veins, 
My heart beats compassionate to all the nations, 
And when they bleed, I bleed — for of their flesh am I. 

My every son stands equal here in sight of God, 
Of diverse colors and a thousand tongues 
Resolved to concord and sweet harmony, 
And bound to every shore afar by ties of brotherhood. 

My stars and stripes, my flag shall symbolize 
Good will to all mankind, 

Portent of that enfolding federation of the world 
Which like a benediction from my shores shall spread. 
Anger shall shake me not though I be wronged afar, 
Though frenzied kinsmen, their eyes bleared with th' 

blood of battles, 
Their minds clouded with war's intoxication 
Fly in the face of right and smite my children, 
Should I too yield to the insane obsession 
That the sword can weigh in the scales with righteous- 
ness? 

125 



A Chant of Love 



I am America! 

I dare to keep the peace even though reviled. 

I have made a compact with God to conserve my 

strong young lives, 
And will not squander them to vaunt my pride. 

Nay, I care not what the world says of me. 

I shall make my own fashion, 

I shall bide my own time, 

Knowing that justice is bred of justice. 

Knowing that righteousness will triumph out of its 

own seed. 
Saxon and Teuton, Cossack and Turk — 
I am all of these and more; 
The north and the south are fused in me 
And the east and the west. 

I am America! 

I am the strong young mother of all men, 

My breasts have given suck to them. 

They are my children all, and with a mother's love 
I ope my arms to them. 

Though others chant of hate, I answer them in peace, 

I turn the sharp blade of their wrath with my in- 
vulnerable armor, 

With my chant of love I make reply. 

I am America! 
The hope of the world am I, 
The vestal fire upon my altar shall not die, 
126 



A Chant of Love 



And when the nations, prostrate, mired in blood and 

the debris of war. 
Groaning in anguish, with clenched teeth still, and 

clutching guns 
Shall cry for mercy and surcease of carnage grim, 
I will take them by the hand, for they are flesh of 

my flesh. 
And we together shall uprear anew 
The mighty temple where we worship God, 
The temple built of consecrated lives 
Uppiled as offerings unto brotherhood. 



127 



NEW WORLD MAGIC 

NEW world, 
New thought, 
New day, 
I salute you! 
Awaked is the sleeper, 
Aroused is the dreamer, 
Yea, the very dead upstart 
And gaze forth in wonder! 

Not Merlin the wizard 

Could work such enchantments. 

Not Faustus, the master, 

Such demons exorcised 

To answer his bidding! 

Old Proteus elusive 

Such changes erratic 

In wildest delirium 

Never embodied. 

Invisible waves through the aether are wafted. 
Invisible thrilling of wires that tingle 
With sound and with power to whirl us onspeeding; 
Speech tossed o'er abysses of silence are captured. 
Sounds stored are at will recreated in wonder! 
128 



New World Magic 



A touch, and the night is a-sparkle with starlight, — 
Aladdin ne'er wrought such audacious conjurings. 

O what is the meaning 
Of such necromancy, 
When Science, magician, 
Cries abracadabra. 
And genii upstarting 
Obediently serve him. 
Nay, this is no magic, 
No miracle working. 
No alchemist's fancies. 
But reason triumphant. 
Converting the formless 
To order and meaning, — 
Mind wrestling with chaos, 
Soul striving with nature, 
Man vying with God! 

But what reck we of the glory of engines? 
We cry for man's glory and the glory of the Lord. 
Aye, the world is but clay to be shaped unto beauty, 
And the stars in the vast are but candles on the altar. 
From the first to the last in the earth and the heavens 
One miracle only can thrill with its wonder. — 
When God breathes on atoms and lo they are life. 
When Man breaks from matter and lo he is love! 



129 



